Going in and out of doors.

Don’t let the door hit you in the bum on the way out!  Such a saying.  How many times have I heard that, or wanted to tell someone that?  The infamous door; we all walk out of them everyday.  Sometimes it’s an angry walk as we posture for power, and make a statement.

Sometimes what is behind a door can’t be tolerated, and sometimes when we walk out of a door, we leave it all behind; because that it where it is meant to be.

We walk in and out of doors our whole lives. Sometimes they lock, and sometimes they revolve. 
Doors can be a beginning or an end of a journey.

“Hey mom, what are you doing? We gotta get going!” OK OK… The rooms were so empty and echoed in silence.  I was off… off to a new world. EVERYTHING was in the van.  OK you guys, I’ll be right there.. I grabbed my canvas painting that meant so much to me and took one last spot check through our house.  I could feel the echo of memories everywhere, and they held me close.  I walked out on to the deck and looked at my beautiful backyard.  A place that I loved more than anything and smiled as I said good bye.  I took  one last deep breath of it all and it recharged me. I felt somehow that the fresh air would stay in my lungs forever.  My mind felt like a continual story board of events of  memories and they echoed through my veins.

It was a lovely summer Saturday in July. My knees were full of dirt, as I painstaking dug deeply into the soil.  I loved the feel of the soil on my hands.  I never liked to wear gardening gloves; it sort of felt like cheating.  Feeling the earth and its abrasiveness felt good and it made me feel a part of it all. My mom always said.. “There is nothing better that good clean dirt!”   Yesterday, Mike had brought home beautiful plants for me to plant in my garden, a great chance to get dirty hands. It was a wonderful birthday present.  He knew it was really all I ever wanted.  


I looked up from the flowers I was planting and caught Mike out of the corner of my eye as he was walking in to the back yard towards me.  “Hey Cath, I had an extra key made for the house” he said.  The kids are coming in later these days,  and I don’t want them to get locked out.”  I looked up at him and he had a small plastic bag from ACE Hardware in his hand and a glass of lemonade.  “Sounds good..good idea,  ‘where do you want to put it?” I asked.  He looked up to the sky and down at me, and then plopped down next to me and smiled. “Where ever you want, were ever you think is safe”.   I thought for a moment and smiled.  “Let’s put in the bottom of the plastic frog that lights up at night. It will be easy for them to find,  and a bit of light to help lead them to the door”  “The plastic frog it is!” he said  as he winked and he leaned down and kissed my forehead.  So odd I thought, he was never one for public displays of affection, but it was our back yard, and no neighbors or children in sight, so I guess he thought is was OK.. It made me smile.

I went back to my gardening. and he painstakingly mowed the lawn and pulled the weeds. Our summer Saturday ritual ended in quiet talks in Adirondack chairs overlooking the freshly cut grass and flowers beds.  We spent hours pondering our life, next weeks schedules, a grocery list, what to have for dinner, and of course, our children. 

“Cathy honey, where are you?” I heard my sister’s footsteps echo in the empty rooms walking through the house.  I had stepped out on my deck, through that door just one more time,  admiring all that once was.  This year’s growing season was coming to a peak.  The garden had lost its luster in the last few years since Mike passed away.  A world and a life had walked through a door.  I wanted to take in a moment with my gardens, even though the good earth I loved so much was left untilled.   Ah, but the fresh air of my backyard felt so good at that moment.  I looked and my sister Mary who was now quietly  standing at the door.

“You OK Cath?”  she said as she peered around the sliding glass door with a pensive smile.  

“Yes I am fine” and smiled and hugged her.  As I looked over her shoulder I saw a plastic frog that had aged and lost its luminary abilities long ago. I had forgotten to pack it. My mind raced back to thoughts of that Saturday a father bought an extra key; a safety key to get in the door”

“Hang on, I forgot something”  I walked down to the garden and tussled at the frog that  hadn’t been moved or cared for in some time.  The garden had taken a back seat in the last couple of years.    I looked under it and peered in a hole in the bottom.. There it was; the key.  The key of safety to get “into” a door. It had never been used!  We forgot to tell the kids about it, and we forgot about it too.  I smiled and giggled a bit at it all.

What is that Cath? She smiled.

“A key we bought and never used as I rolled my eyes and laughed.” Mike bought it for the kids, in case they every got locked out.  I forgot it was there.  She smiled and waited for me to have my thoughts. I tucked it into my pocket, and left the frog in the garden.  Unearthed, but in it’s rightful place.

And so, it was my last walk through a home, with a painting tucked under my arm, and key to a door in my pocket.  The other keys were left on the counter for the new owners.  It was going to be a family with little girls, who someday may need the help of a plastic frog in the back yard.   I kept the key that lived in the belly of a frog as a reminder of the safety that comes into walking into doors, and the courage it sometimes takes to walk out of them.

As I saw the truck waiting in the street, and the for sale sign hanging in the front yard, I slowly shut the front door, and felt a breeze on my back.  “Don’t let the door hit you in the bum Cath.”

Doors; they open and close in your life for all kinds of reasons.  Sometimes they are open and ready for you, and you are unaware you need to go through them.   They can mark a beginning or an ending.. Some doors can never been opened again, and others allow you to revisit what on the otherside whenever you want.  But the door of my home and gardens was shut now, and they was a warm and a calm feeling with that.  I knew the memories of that home would be kept safe, behind a closed door.  It’s where they needed to be left.

The importance act of walking through a door.  Sometimes you have to understand that the breeze you feel on your backside when a door closes and hits you in the bum is just a “power boost” to point you in the right direction